Ekaterina Akuma

Ekaterina is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores fashion as material culture and cultural practice, with an emphasis on identity and individualization, sustainability and the relation of fashion and time.

She is a concept artist and designer whose research work and creative practice has sought to develop strategies for the designer to employ in seeking to reduce the environmental impact of textile production, consumption and disposal. Her approach is based on learning through practice – making textile work in order to realize new ideas that will drive the reflection and resulting theory. The focus of the work is bio and natural materials and emerging technologies.

She has a desire to create opportunities for design graduates which stemmed from her experience working with Donna Karan and her Urban Zen foundation in Haiti. She believes that fashion industry can be an important player in driving social change in our communities.

She studied her MA in Fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in New York and Paris as well as at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Ekaterina Akuma is one of the designers who won Parsons Design Fellowship, that was launched by Parsons The New School for Design and the Urban Zen Foundation and was designing for The Design, Organization, Training Center (D.O.T) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The D.O.T was created by Donna Karan, Urban Zen, Parsons School of Design, and Haitian artisan and businesswoman Paula Coles to help bridge Haiti’s traditional artisan techniques with the modernity and design innovation needed to succeed in today’s global marketplace.